awx | AWX provides a web-based user interface | Automation library

I'm trying to deploy a JSON file as a template and configure the variables for it in a group_var. Here is how I have my ansible structured:

I use a plugin such as nginx in ansible playbook.

https://galaxy.ansible.com/nginxinc/nginx_core

On server I can use cli to install the roles and collections as

I have a playbook that is launched from AWX with machine credentials, ie. with ssh_user_A. In this playbook, i need to perform a couple of tasks with another SSH user, ie. ssh_user_B.

In terms of credentials, I have:

• machine credentials for ssh_user_A that are OK, I can do whatever I need
• a public/private keys couple for ssh_user_B:
  • the public key is present on the remote host in the ~ssh_user_B/.ssh/authorized_keys file
  • if I test this public/private key with a temp machine credentials (not possible in final target) and a dummy playbook or an ad-hoc module call, it works I can do whatever I need

I change the SSH user in the playbook with these instructions:

AWX/Ansible Tower has it's own REST API service. From the below url structure i can get information about an in progress or finished workflow job:

I'm facing a problem when trying to get the id of one group in Ansible tower using a playbook and inside the playbook I am using the tower-cli command.

The problem is that when I get the output of this tower-cli command:

I am reading from a CSV file, register a variable and loop through the variable's list. It's as easy as below example:

I'm trying to get server name as user input and if the server OS is RHEL7 it will proceed for further tasks. I'm trying with hostvars but it is not helping, kindly help me to find the OS version with when condition:

I'm using AWX as a task runner to run a variety of Ansible modules. Some of the Ansible modules are third-party modules whose parameters I can't control without forking the module, which is undesirable for a variety of reasons.

AWX supplies ansible_user as one variable that is used by some of the modules I'm using, and I'm trying to allow a user to some hosts by setting another variable, user_override.

I first thought to simply add the line ansible_user: "{{ user_override | default(ansible_user) }}" to the task's parameters, which would work... but the modules in question don't accept credentials via parameters. My next thought was to add a vars: entry to the playbook and supply the override there via the same markup as above. This unfortunately results in the error recursive loop detected in template string, which has been the bane of my existence while working through this problem.

I've also tried using the if/else syntax and intermediate variables, but neither appear to solve this problem.

How can I achieve this override functionality without forking AWX or the module in question?

Mods: This is distinct from the pile of questions asking about simple variable defaulting because the existing questions aren't in the context of AWX or can be solved by simply using default() or default(lookup()).

We've had a working Ansible AWX instance running on v5.0.0 for over a year, and suddenly all jobs stop working -- no output is rendered. They will start "running" but hang indefinitely without printing out any logging.

The AWX instance is running in a docker compose container setup as defined here: https://github.com/ansible/awx/blob/5.0.0/INSTALL.md#docker-compose

Standard troubleshooting such as restarting of containers, host OS, etc. hasn't helped. No configuration changes in either environment.

Upon debugging an actual playbook command, we observe that the command to run a playbook from the UI is like the below:

ssh-agent sh -c ssh-add /tmp/awx_11021_0fmwm5uz/artifacts/11021/ssh_key_data && rm -f /tmp/awx_11021_0fmwm5uz/artifacts/11021/ssh_key_data && ansible-playbook -vvvvv -u ubuntu --become --ask-vault-pass -i /tmp/awx_11021_0fmwm5uz/tmppo7rcdqn -e @/tmp/awx_11021_0fmwm5uz/env/extravars playbook.yml

That's broken down into three commands in sequence:

1. ssh-agent sh -c ssh-add /tmp/awx_11021_0fmwm5uz/artifacts/11021/ssh_key_data
2. rm -f /tmp/awx_11021_0fmwm5uz/artifacts/11021/ssh_key_data
3. ansible-playbook -vvvvv -u ubuntu --become --ask-vault-pass -i /tmp/awx_11021_0fmwm5uz/tmppo7rcdqn -e @/tmp/awx_11021_0fmwm5uz/env/extravars playbook.yml

You can see in part 3, the -vvvvv is the debugging argument -- however, the hang is happening on command #1. Which has nothing to do with ansible or AWX specifically, but it's not going to get us much debugging info.

I tried doing an strace to see what is going on, but for reasons given below, it is pretty difficult to follow what it is actually hanging on. I can provide this output if it might help.

So one natural question with command #1 -- what is 'ssh_key_data'?

Well it's what we set up to be the Machine credential in AWX (an SSH key) -- it hasn't changed in a while and it works just fine when used in a direct SSH command. It's also apparently being set up by AWX as a file pipe:

prw------- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 08:29 ssh_key_data

Which starts to explain why it could be potentially hanging (if nothing is being read in from the other side of the pipe).

Running a normal ansible-playbook from command line (and supplying the SSH key in a more normal way) works just fine, so we can still deploy, but only via CLI right now -- it's just AWX that is broken.

So the question then becomes "why now"? And "how to debug"? I have checked the health of awx_postgres, and verified that indeed the Machine credential is present in an expected format (in the main_credential table). I have also verified that can use ssh-agent on the awx_task container without the use of that pipe keyfile. So it really seems to be this piped file that is the problem -- but I haven't been able to glean from any logs where the other side of the pipe (sender) is supposed to be or why they aren't sending the data.